The Chesterfield Kings
Don't Open Til Doomsday

Do Not Open Until Doomsday.

It would fit perfectly as the title for a "Z" series horror; it is actually that of a fantastic episode of the garage-punk revival saga set in the glorious eighties.

The protagonists are the Chesterfield Kings, band of hellions led by Greg Prevost.

Greg Prevost is one of those essential figures in the genre's epic, minor yet indispensable to the captivating development of the story. He is certainly not a Greg Shaw or a Rudi Protrudi, let alone a Leighton, but what would the garage-revival have been without figures like him, Shelley Ganz, Mike Stax, or Lee Joseph? Certainly, spared thrills of excitement and liters of sweat, and weekends wasted at the cinema or theater instead of moshing like an idiot in front of a turntable.

So, eternal praise to Greg Prevost and all the unforgettable heroes of my adolescence, spent blasting my eardrums with garage-punk, the most beautiful music there is.

There are these types roaming the world who don't care about making music just to earn a few bucks and make a living. No, for them the fateful three chords, one after the other, are not just a job or an art; they are life itself, and without the Chocolate Watchband, life wouldn't make sense.

The Chocolate Watchband and even the earliest Rolling Stones, for the Chesterfield Kings: look at them in their debut and you can't help but exclaim that, damn, they've taken a time machine and landed back when Jagger, Richard (still without the 's'), and the late Jones were exhausting themselves playing blues standards in basements.

So, the debut of the Chesterfield Kings is a striking compilation of covers of the aforementioned Chocolate Watchband, Sonics, and other obscure groups known only to them: legend has it that the boys met at a used record market, so what do you expect from people like that who decide to form a band? That they come up with an album like «Here Are The Chesterfield Kings».

The usual critics don't like the album because it only contains covers and this type of offering has no future, and so on. Thus, the Kings let a few years pass and come out with «Stop», which also includes original songs, but it's as if they were covers, such is their determined and stubborn adherence to the dictates of sixties-garage. The critics call them dull, but it's another beautiful album, always in the vein of garage that can't be debated but can only be loved, and it further convinces me that moshing like an idiot in front of a turntable is waaaay better than going to the cinema to watch «Dangerous Liaisons».

Then comes «Don't Open Til Doomsday».

Super tacky cover, similar to «Still Standing» by Jason And The Scorchers more or less; changes the image, and maybe it's because Greg, the night before posing for the camera, slept crooked and woke up with a bad hair day; changes the sound, and maybe it's because Walt O'Brien makes his guitar debut.

Now, Walt O'Brien looks just like Johnny – and don't you dare ask «Johnny who?».

Somehow, Dee Dee sees those photos too, transforms into Dee Dee King, gifts the lads "Baby Doll," even joins in on the choruses, and the job's done: the Ramones covering «Nuggets» are a blast.

Among the covers, there's also T-Bone Burnett and the Kinks, so the sound has truly changed. There's plenty of garage grooves with a heavy dose of poppy flair that calling it enjoyable is an understatement, and a track like "Selfish Little Girl" – original, dear critics of nonsense – is hat-worthy and immediately ranks among the eighties' nuggets: even the Byrds covering «Nuggets» are a blast.

The sound has changed, true, but garage is a creed. So, the boys go fishing for a band only they know (who the hell are the Blue Stars?) and setlist a track like «Social End Product», the dirty version of «I Ain't No Miracle Worker»: crank the distortion and terrifying riffs, a furiously pounding rhythm section, and Greg unleashing a voice that seems like Iggy Pop in the days of «TV Eye». Damn, what a track: one of those that, if you ever had to make a tape with the ten most devastating garage-punk tracks, this must be included by all means, no matter the cost.

Despite everything, even this record hardly gets noticed, but who cares.

Certainly not me, who keeps moshing like an idiot in front of the turntable every time I play the Unclaimed or Yard Trauma.

Certainly not the Kings, who for thirty years have kept cranking out riff after riff for those, like them, who have one single, undeniable, indestructible faith to proclaim until Doomsday and beyond. Garage-punk.